An off-duty New York City firefighter was brutally attacked by a mob of teenagers while he was walking his dog in a Queens park on Friday.
The firefighter encountered a mob of approximately 100 teens, when one of them declared “it’s fight night” and jumped him.
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According to a report from the New York Post, “the 44-year-old victim said he was strolling with his 3-year-old Labradoodle Dylan in Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village at around 9:55 p.m. Friday when he was suddenly targeted by the mob.”
“There were at least 100 kids … I was walking my dog. They just picked me out and approached me,” the still-shaken victim, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post Saturday afternoon. “One kid took his shirt off and said, ‘it’s Fight Night!’ He said he was 19 and said, ‘I could fight you.’ Everyone took their cell phones out. There were cell phones everywhere.”
“They all came at me…A kid came up behind me and hit me in the back of the head with a bottle and I let go of the dog,” he said.
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The father of three explained that luckily there was an ambulance nearby that pulled up and stopped the attack.
“They didn’t care at all. The kids were going crazy. They were as high as a kite. I got hit, turned around, that’s when the kids started coming at me …. Then I was on the floor, holding one kid and an ambulance pulled up. They were waiting by the park … If they weren’t there I would have been in much worse condition.”
The dog was grabbed by a Good Samaritan and was not harmed.
The Guardian Angels will begin patrolling the park starting 6 p.m. Saturday, GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, said in response to the incident.
No arrests have been made. Police are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the following individuals that were involved.
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Source material can be found at this site.
